Labor

By Chris Robinson Delegates to the National Convention of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) passed two significant resolutions, which will allow local unions to encourage their members to vote for independent political candidates, including those from the Green Party. The meeting of more than 1,000 union members took place during the last week of October in St. Louis, MO. In the past, labor unions have, with few exceptions, endorsed electoral candidates from the two corporate parties. These politicians kowtow to the interests of corporations and the wealthy. Because of the expense of electoral campaigns,…

By Christopher Casey In a recent article for Truthdig, Chris Hedges reiterated what many of us on the Left have been saying for some time. The Bernie Sanders campaign will NOT bring about any fundamental change, and represents a tragic diversion of social justice energies into the Democratic Party, a place where progressive movements go to die. Hedges also has some very sharp words about the current state of my Green Party, saying it is “crippled by endemic factionalism and dysfunction”. While I think Hedges’ latter comments are inaccurate and hyperbolic, he is correct in suggesting that the Green Party…

Socialist Worker May 26, 2015 by Howie Hawkins BERNIE SANDERS’ entry into the Democratic presidential primaries should be seen as his final decisive step away from the democratic socialism he professes to support. He will raise some progressive demands in the primaries and then endorse the corporate Democrat, Hillary Clinton. Nothing changes. Sanders is violating the first principle of socialist politics: class independence. The socialist movement learned that principle long ago when the business classes sold out the workers in the democratic revolutions of 1848 that swept across Europe and parts of Latin America. Drawing out the lesson from these…

Global Greens by Scott McLarty May 4, 2015 The US Congress is preparing to vote on fast-track authority for President Obama, in support of a quick approval for the President to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). On April 22, Senate Finance Committee approved fast-track legislation. The following day, fast track passed in the US House Ways and Means Committee after ten hours of debate. The next step will be a vote in House. (“Fast track” is a mechanism allowing the President to sign trade deals before Congress votes on them; when the vote eventually happens it must be a simple…

The North Star by Mark Lause, State Committee, Green Party of Ohio March 22, 2015 If I had a dollar for every time I heard somebody say that they wouldn’t support the Greens because they were “a bourgeois party,” I’d probably be able to buy my very own state legislator . . . or, at least, a cheap city councilman. While this assertion seems usually intended to kill the subject, I think a more refined understanding about the class nature of political parties among American Marxists is worth the risk of a discussion. Not that this is easy in 21st…